Joshua Valdez is an entertainment journalist who likes to write about the complexities of his favorite movies and TV shows, often relating them to real-world issues. He also enjoys writing about current events in the entertainment landscape, and is always looking for interesting topics to cover. Rather than gossip, he focuses on how events in the entertainment world reflect on society at large. This was a significant factor in why he chose to write for Hollywood Insider, as they focus on art and culture over gossip and scandal. His ultimate goal is to help the reader learn something new.
Aug 21, 2020
Table of Contents
Photo: Zoe Kravitz in High Fidelity/Hulu
Actress Zoe Kravitz posted an Instagram photo of herself with the cast of her show High Fidelity, which Hulu cancelled after one season. In the caption, she wrote “I wanna give a shout out to my #highfidelity family. Thank you for all the love and heart you put into this show. I’m in awe of all of you. And thank you to everyone who watched, loved and supported us. #breakupssuck.”
Fellow actress Tessa Thompson commented, saying how much she will miss everyone, to which Kravitz replied “It’s cool. At least Hulu has a ton of other shows starring women of color we can watch. Oh wait.”
Let’s investigate Zoe Kravitz Statement
How accurate is Kravitz’s accusation? Well, it depends. If you’re simply talking about shows with female minorities in the cast, there are plenty of those in its “Black Stories” section. Atlanta, Power, andEverybody Hates Chrisare among the most noteworthy. However, if you’re looking for shows with female minorities in leading roles, it’s a much different conversation.
All three of the aforementioned shows have men in the leading roles. In fact, that’s the case for most of the shows in this section. There are some exceptions, such as Queen Sugar, Grown-ish, and Little Fires Everywhere, but the selection is not plentiful.
In their “Latino” section, it’s a similar story. There are a couple of female-led shows, such as East Los High and I Love Jenni.However, there are many more male-led shows. Even worse, there are no other “ethnic” TV shows in this section. There is an international section, but it includes mainly white-dominated shows from Europe (as well as anime, but let’s focus on live-action content). It certainly appears that Kravitz was not only accurate in her criticism, but also observant enough to point out an issue that could have gone relatively unnoticed by the general public.
Of course, this leads us to the all-important question: why doesn’t Hulu have more of these types of shows? And why would it cancel one of its only shows that had a female minority in the main role?
A post shared by Zoë Kravitz (@zoeisabellakravitz) on
It doesn’t make sense on multiple levels
According to Brady Langmann and Adrienne Westenfeld from Esquire,“We’re in the middle of a streaming TV boom as of last year, Hulu reportedly was working with a $2.5 billion programming budget. That’s still a fraction of Netflix’s $8 billion wallet, but you’d think Hulu could carve out a home for High Fidelity amidst the Future Mans of its platform. Even if High Fidelity attracted only a modest audience, the show was an important step forward for Hulu, a platform still lagging woefully behind its competitors in offering original content starring women of color.”
Of course, there will always be a moral obligation for Hulu, and all entertainment companies, to include women and people of color in its content. However, it also makes more sense to do so from a business perspective. Rather than limiting itself, why not expand its audience to people of different cultures, which would in turn make more profit? Instead, Hulu decided to discontinue one of its most progressive shows after just one season, alienating Kravitz and her followers in the process. While Hulu may not be as big as Netflix, $2.5 billion is plenty to fund some more inclusive shows. There are no excuses at this point.
Additionally, it has a “K-dramas” section, centering on Korean shows. This is a whole group of people to whom Hulu has not bothered to cater to at all yet. The section has several Netflix original shows with female leads, including Was It Love?andLove Alarm. If Hulu wants to become as popular as Netflix any time soon, it would be wise to make more of an effort to appeal to a multitude ethnicities.
Personally, I’ve never heard of a show changing the race and gender of the original main character. That’s what High Fidelity did, remaking the 2000 film of the same name. In that movie, the main character was Robert Fleming, a straight white male who owns a record store and has issues in the romance arena. In the Hulu show, Robert is replaced by Robyn Fleming, an African-American women with the same occupation and troubles in her love life (played by Kravitz). Additionally, it appeals to the LGBTQ community, with Rob having an interest in both sexes, while her friend Simon is also gay.
“The amount of comments, DMs, things on Twitter, articles written about Brown women who love music, were afraid of commitment, who’ve never seen a person like them on television — they feel seen for the first time,” said Kravitz on an episode of Varietyand iHeartRadio’s “The Big Ticket” podcast. “I have a friend who — one of his best friends loves punk music and is gay — it’s like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m watching a gay man in a Minor Threat shirt. I’ve never seen that before.’ Just breaking away from the stereotypes, I feel like people need that. So I feel very lucky to have been able to deliver that, because one of the most important things for me was authenticity and bringing a real world to life. I’ve lived in New York for a long time, and in a lot of ways this was a love letter to New York with all its messiness and diversity.”
At the end of the day, Hulu can only benefit from including more groups of people in their shows. Even if they aren’t immediately huge hits, people will eventually appreciate “being seen for the first time,” as Kravitz put it. High Fidelity is exactly the type of show Hulu should be promoting, not cancelling. Sometimes people have to take a couple of steps backwards before they can move forward.
Verdict: Hulu needs to do better and make more shows with Black & Brown actresses in leading roles.
An excerpt from the love letter: Hollywood Insider’s CEO/editor-in-chief Pritan Ambroase affirms, “Hollywood Insider fully supports the much-needed Black Lives Matter movement. We are actively, physically and digitally a part of this global movement. We will continue reporting on this major issue of police brutality and legal murders of Black people to hold the system accountable. We will continue reporting on this major issue with kindness and respect to all Black people, as each and every one of them are seen and heard. Just a reminder, that the Black Lives Matter movement is about more than just police brutality and extends into banking, housing, education, medical, infrastructure, etc. We have the space and time for all your stories. We believe in peaceful/non-violent protests and I would like to request the rest of media to focus on 95% of the protests that are peaceful and working effectively with positive changes happening daily. Media has a responsibility to better the world and Hollywood Insider will continue to do so.”
Joshua Valdez is an entertainment journalist who likes to write about the complexities of his favorite movies and TV shows, often relating them to real-world issues. He also enjoys writing about current events in the entertainment landscape, and is always looking for interesting topics to cover. Rather than gossip, he focuses on how events in the entertainment world reflect on society at large. This was a significant factor in why he chose to write for Hollywood Insider, as they focus on art and culture over gossip and scandal. His ultimate goal is to help the reader learn something new.
Hollywood Insider is a media network thatfocuses on substance and meaningful entertainment/culture, so as to utilize media as a tool to unite and better our world, by combining entertainment, education and philanthropy, while being against gossip and scandal.
Joshua Valdez is an entertainment journalist who likes to write about the complexities of his favorite movies and TV shows, often relating them to real-world issues. He also enjoys writing about current events in the entertainment landscape, and is always looking for interesting topics to cover. Rather than gossip, he focuses on how events in the entertainment world reflect on society at large. This was a significant factor in why he chose to write for Hollywood Insider, as they focus on art and culture over gossip and scandal. His ultimate goal is to help the reader learn something new.
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